


Bad Dreams

by JamieLegend



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, during act 3, hawke overthinking, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 17:22:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16022489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JamieLegend/pseuds/JamieLegend
Summary: Marian Hawke has bad dreams. Sometimes they wake her up and she starts thinking about everyone she lost and all the things she did. Luckily, there is someone to help her snap out of it.





	Bad Dreams

Hawke wakes with a start.

The sheets tangle around her feet and her skin is sweaty, so sweaty she feels the fabric of her nightgown sticking to her skin. Her breath is short, and it takes her a while to take in where she is.

The fire had gone out in the fireplace, only a few embers that refused to die out were still glowing. Her dog wasn't in the room – possibly went to cuddle with Sandal since his spot was occupied by... She looked down, seeing Fenris asleep in her bed.

Usually, the sight of him would calm down even the worst dream she could have, yet the sight of him sleeping peacefully brings her no comfort.

Marian slipped quietly out of the bed and grabbed her coat, pulling it over her shoulders as she walked out to the balcony of her room. Despite the sweat that trickled over her pale skin, she felt impossibly cold.

Her ears are ringing, despite the silence that settled heavily over Hightown.

As she steps out, she takes in a deep breath, hoping the familiar scent of her town would put her heart at ease. Almost five years spent here, yet she still feels like she doesn't belong here. Marian couldn't say if she belonged anywhere in her whole life.

The moment she could make fire with just a movement of her fingertips, her parents started to move constantly to hide her magic. Then Bethany came along – and the fear of being found was ever present in their home.

So, she never had put her roots down.

Hell, despite her charm and easy going attitude, Marian never made many friends until she arrived in this shithole. She only had her siblings to take care off.

Marian quickly looked up, because even now – she can see Bethany's body on the floor, her spine broken so horribly that she swears she can see it poking out of her dress.

She still remembered watching her brother disappear in the Grey Warden's tent – he never came out as Carver again.

No siblings. The twins she tried to take care of and protect all her life were now in places so far she couldn't possibly reach, one turned to dust that spread over the Wilds, and one disappearing into the ranks of an order who guarded their secrets better than the Chantry.

Wrapping her arms around her middle, Marian takes a moment to return into the moment. It was a trick Aveline taught her when things became too much for her to handle.  
Think of where you are.

The Amell estate, the estate her stupid uncle Gamlen sold due to debts he inherited and accumulated. The estate where her mother grew up in, the estate she left when she ran away with her father.

Even now, Marian can still see her mother's happy expression when she had let her in. She remembers how her mother immediately started to list all the things she had to fix and what she had to buy to make her home better than before.

Her mother.

Varric always said that no one was half as capable as Hawke herself. He’d say it in jest, but she knew he stood by it.

But was she?

Her mother depended on her the moment they buried her father. The moment her father died a large part of her mother died with him. She couldn’t take care of her siblings or her – so Marian took it upon herself to do it.

That’s why she always tried to do anything to save and make her mother happy.

She tried to save them and got Bethany killed. Yes, if she didn’t at least try, maybe all of them would have died there already, yet her mother blamed her. She said she didn’t, but whenever her mother would touch her hair, Marian could see that she resented her that she was the sister that lived.

Bethany, the kind, sweet mage versus Marian, the loud, idiotic mage. The choice would have been simple – yet the Maker, or whoever, decided it was Marian who had to live.

Hell, she even remembered the silence her mother gave her when it was only her that returned to Kirkwall. Carver, her whiney and needy brother who always seemed to take care of their mother’s needs better than her, was gone and won’t come back.

Poor Leandra had to settle with Marian.

Yet, Marian tried, Maker, she tried.

It wasn’t enough.

For a moment, she could almost smell the rotting flesh that her mother’s face was stitched into. The white gown she was forced into, haunts her still.

Gamlen didn’t speak to her for almost a full year, even after what happened with the Qunari.

The damn Qunari.

It’s been almost four years since then, yet she remembers running through the city, trying to survive and get to Hightown, all in her desperate attempt to try and save this damn city.

And what a fucking great job she did.

The viscount was dead and no one seemed to be eagerly taking the position. She was named Champion and now everyone wanted to know her opinion on the whole damn mage and Templar issue. As if she wanted to have an opinion!

Sometimes she wished that she had lost her duel with the Arishok.

That thought passes her mind sometimes.

It festers.

It festers like a disgusting boil, like an open wound that never seems to be able to close. No matter what happens that wound is always there.

It gapes open sometimes, appearing larger.

When she sees Anders losing himself further and further in her cause. When she sees Varric attempting a joke about stupid siblings. When Isabella looks at her with an expression that Marian can’t name.

When she comes to an empty house.

Marian blinks in surprise as she felt tears rushing down her face.

Quickly, she lifted her hands up, furiously wiping the tears away from her face, before she clutches the railing of the balcony, eyes shut tightly.

Sometimes her deeds catch up to her.

She can see all those thieves, raiders falling when she ends them with a spell, with a slash. She watches them crash against the ground and not raise again.

Like Bethany had.

Like her mother had.

Her grip is becoming painful when a hand falls over one of her hands. The hand is larger and darker than hers, with a familiar pattern of tattoos that runs up it.

Fenris.

The one person Marian loved fully, completely. Yes, there were men – and women before him. Boys and girls from villages, some even in Kirkwall. But after he arrived, no one even caught her eye. The only person that came back after they left.

“Bad dream?” His voice is quiet and soft, as she looks up to him.

She didn’t even hear him waking up and coming up behind her. Bad, bad, she should know better than that. She should know better than to drift away into her thoughts so profusely that she forgets where she is.

But he wraps his arm around her waist and brings her to his chest, gently prying her hands away from the railing. The stone had cut into her hands, leaving deep indents. He’s gentle as he pulls her in, one hand moving to rest over her raven black hair.

“Bad dream.” She repeated.

Marian knew how to handle his nightmares.

Oh, Fenris had his demons. Sometimes, she’d wake up because of a sound that would escape him during sleep. Like a wounded animal – or worse. Sometimes he’d wake up and shake until sunrise. Hell, she even remembers waking up to him pacing around, clutching a dagger as if he expected someone to jump them.

Marian thought herself as selfish when she thought she had it bad when Fenris would take bad over what happened to him any day.

Yet, she feels his fingers brushing through her hair, calming her heartbeat.

She closed her eyes and leaned onto him, knowing he’ll always catch her.

No matter where she went, she always brought Fenris along. He was the only constant in her life because she knew she could always count on him. And he was the one from her company that had to get out the most – after all, if she didn’t come over to him as much as she did, he’d still be holed up in that mansion.

Only in the past couple of years did he start to normally go out without her asking him to.

It was a relief.

She felt his lips pressed against her temple, the soft and sweet action easing the tension in her body as if by magic.

Marian raised her arms, wrapping them around his middle. She pressed her cheek over his chest, right where she could hear his heartbeat. Steady. Calm.

“Do you wish to speak of it?”

She tightens her grip for a moment before she closes her eyes.

She knew she should. She should tell him how she dreamed of all those deaths. She should tell him how she dreamt of their friend’s deaths. Varric dying from grief, Aveline dying while protecting people, Isabella losing herself and her head. Merill finally paying the ultimate price for her magic, Anders dying for his cause. Carver dying in the white and blue armor of the Wardens. 

And Fenris. Her mind is most creative, killing Fenris in any possible way it can come up with.

She dreams of being completely alone, powerless and hopeless.

But she knows it would never happen.

Varric is strong, Aveline has plenty of reasons to live. Isabella has people to check on her and protect her and Merill has a whole new family that knows when to stop her – and Marian will save Anders from his cause.

Yet Fenris is her biggest gamble.

He left once already. He turned away from her and left this very room. But he came back.

He fell numerous times in their fights, so hurt that she had to almost carry him back to his home. But he survived.

Yet, Fenris has her heart in his hand. 

Or what was left of it.

Marian opened her blue eyes and looked up to him. He was concerned it was easy to see that. She knew how to hide her suffering so well that sometimes even she forgot it was there. Yet it comes crashing back sometimes, and it scares her.

And what scares her must terrify others.

She brushes his hair back, and he leans his face into her hand, eyes closed. Such a beautiful man.

“I love you.”

He opens his eyes at her affectionate words and raises an eyebrow as if to ask her if that was really her answer to his concerns.

She shifts in his arms so she can face him properly, and she lifts her other hand up, tucking his hair behind his sharp ears.

Bright green eyes that she loved so much take her back. Take her back to the night where she took Carver, Varric and Isabella – the newest addition to her group to take care of a job for some sketchy dwarf. She remembers seeing him come down and step over a corpse like it was nothing.

She remembers how polite he was despite having bloody hands. She remembers ignoring her brother’s concern and making her way up to Hightown where he asked to meet her.

She remembers all the little things after that.

His nervous fidgeting when she managed to talk him into coming to the Hanged Man with her one night. His small smirk the first time he won in Wicked Grace.

She remembers crashing with him in Varric’s room when they drank too much.

She remembers the first time they kissed, the first time he touched her.

She remembers him walking out and then coming back after a few years, lost and confused.

She remembers sitting with him for hours helping him to read and showing him how to write. All those little things were held in those fantastic green eyes.

“I-I love you so much.” Her voice quivers for a moment, and she hates it, she hates it so much that she bites her lower lip.

Fenris cups her face in his hands, and she can see the concern raising in his features but she shakes her head and swallows hard.

She can do this.

Marian will scoop all of her emotions together and carefully tuck them away, fold them neatly in a pile and not bother with them ever. She will bottle every bit of it up until even she can’t remember what it was all about.

So, instead, she pulls away and takes his hands, wanting to just pull him back to bed. “Come, let’s go to bed. I promised Aveline I will go check out what is happening near the Wounded coast.”

Yet, Fenris doesn’t move but digs his feet in. His eyes are narrowed as he looks down at her before he finally gives in and brings her back into his arms, using a bit of force to surprise her. She almost loses her footing but he holds her safe and close.

He is soft and careful as he splays one hand over the small of her back, the other wrapped around her shoulders. Marian counts the moments before he speaks.

“I love you too, Marian.”

A small shudder escapes her as he says her first name. Hesitant and careful, she shifts in his arms to wrap around him, staying close like this.

She might not be alright at this very moment.

But now, wrapped up in his arms, she can hope for a day that she will be.

One day.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and thank you for reading!
> 
> This was mostly just an exercise and excuse for me to write Hawke overthinking about everything. I just love DA II and Hawke a lot, alright?
> 
> Again, thank you for reading! Any comments or kudos are greatly appreciated!


End file.
